Made of glass
by dervishandbanges
Summary: Life sucks, everyone knows that. Nothing helps. Except for coke. So be careful about who you meet in the street.


_A/N: Okay... my OTP - if I ever had one - flew to Pigfaaahts, which is on Maaahs, with a rocketship like this evening. I have to say my state is still lower than awful, I'm permanently overtired and insomniac, plus now I'm super sick. It's just a cold, aha, but sometimes I'm kind of suffocating because of the cough. Anyway my mother is away and that's why I'm using the computer at 2.30 am o.o ... anyway, this is my very first Runa, and since I tend to make everyone super OOC, please let me know if I've kept everybody in character okay :) Also my language is still crawling on all fours, so if there are any grammar errors or something incomprehensible you notice please let me know. Oh... and every time you leave without reviewing, Lord Voldemort kills a gardener. Just keep this in mind. xd_

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><p>"One coke, Ma'am."<p>

"Which one?"

"One point two, please."

"The one in the glass bottle?"

"Yeah."

"There you go. 80 pence please. Thank you. Goodbye."

The sales clerk smiled at him from over the counter when he was leaving. He lifted a hand in a gesture that was supposed to be waving. She kept on smiling in this awkward way, so he just shrugged and pulled the hat even lower down his forehead.

It was so simple, being a Muggle. Of course, he wasn't doing that super often, but now, with so many rows with Hermione and the boss that underestimated everyone except himself, Ronald Weasley decided he's had enough and he needs a rest. And when he needed a rest, he left home and pretended magical world didn't exist. He quickly found out escaping his real life was easy and simple and quite enjoyable his way; he started to like the cheap barstools in Muggle pubs, Muggle ale, Muggle shoes and Muggle girls that smiled at him. Hermione – his wife, his awful, deceivable, promiscuous wife that kept on betraying him for like three years – never smiled at him that way, simply because she found him an old boring git. Oh, this woman was nonsense.

So. Leaving tesco right now, he would probably go meet some of his Muggle mates in the pub – Jimmy the builder, Angus the teacher and Donald the war combatant – and then… well, maybe he'd find himself a girl to spend the evening with. Some years before, spending a day with his friends would mean spending a day with Harry Potter, his best friend ever… Harry Potter, Mr. I'm-Gonna-Save-The-World-Tonight, and Ron Weasley, the ginger sidekick. Whatever. Oh, he was still cool with Harry and all that, but Harry Potter was the guy that slept with Ron's wife. Regularly. And also, he was the husband of Ron's sister. Who didn't know. About Hermione. That she and Harry. This is disgusting.

So Ron – or Mr. Weasley – reckoned sleeping with your best friend's wife – regularly – was not a super cool thing you'd do to a best friend. He pretended he didn't know about that and Ginny pretended she didn't know as well… everybody knew. This was double disgusting.

Ron opened the bottle with his teeth and spat the cap between the bars of a drainage grate. The sweet taste of the drink made him even more thirsty. That was the exact effect he was looking for whenever he spent Muggle money on something as trivial as coca-cola; to want more. Not that he was a super greedy man, and the feeling of refreshment was really nice too; but it was all about wanting more. When to think about it, coke was the only thing he wanted in his life. His wife meant nothing to him – what could she possibly mean? And his work was not satisfying anymore, either. He took another sip of the drink. Let's feel positive today – remember Donald the combatant's problems with the amputated leg? He thought it still existed and that he cannot bend his knee, which hurt him _so _much – Ronald, my son, can you imagine this, never anything so horrible in my life… and I remember how in Berlin, 1945—

Let's say the magical world, _everything_, is the amputated leg. And let's say we can bend the knee.

Ron took one more sip of coke, emptying the bottle. Next trash can he sees, he's gonna throw it away, it's awkward to enter the pub with your own drink, even if it's just cola…

And then he saw her.

It took him a while to recognize her, in this huge navy hoodie that was long enough to hide half of her thighs; in the heavy black boots, and with the weird green fishnet stockings that totally didn't suit her; her eyes were sunken and her skin was grayish pale, like a ghost's. But it must've been her – he remembered her dirty blonde hair that was now so thin and weak, and that used to resemble a nest of an ostrich. And who else would stick their wand into their boot, and who else would wear a necklace made of corks; and who else would… then he noticed the corks that formed her necklace were no more Butterbeer's, they were wine corks; and he noticed the fake eyelashes like wings of a butterfly; and the white tissue she was crumpling in her left hand and with which she wiped her nose all the time.

Her eyes, her huge, wide eyes, were fixed on some mysterious point; she would only stare there, blankly, not seeming to notice anybody next to her.

She wiped her nose again.

In her right hand, she was holding a bottle of coke. She was holding it so tightly that her fingers went white, clasping around the glass form.

She swallowed, wiped her nose, blinked, but did not notice him.

He caught her by the shoulder, stopped her, said banal things like hello or how are you.

She didn't answer.

"Luna? You recognize me? I'm Ron, Ron Weasley, remember me? We went to school together, to Hogwarts, come on, respond…"

She clutched the bottle even tighter and then she spoke.

"Ronald. How lovely to see you."

She kind of smiled, but not really.

He took her by the hand, the one she was holding the tissue in, and she accompanied him the whole day. And the whole evening.

The motel was very cheap and very ugly. She put the bottle on the nightstand very carefully, just in the middle, like she wanted to make sure it wouldn't fall off.

He thought that maybe he should pay her or something like that; she didn't mention and he didn't ask. Instead he just blurted out everything he had to say, everything, about Hermione, about Harry, about life, about work, about how he wanted to forget and about how he wanted to turn back time and all this kind of stuff. She didn't say anything, she just listened, looking him in the eyes or rather _staring_. That's what she did the whole time, never said a word, just stared.

Her earrings were very heavy and long, so she took them off and placed them near the bottle of coke. After a moment of something Ron would call _consideration_, she surrounded the coke by the earrings and let him do all the work.

He couldn't fall asleep, he just found himself unable to, and she wanted to go after everything was finished, but he stopped her. She was very skinny and very light, so he just took her wrist and made her stay.

And then all of a sudden she started speaking. Her voice was hoarse and light and very quiet, and she seemed to be picking all the words very carefully. She told him the whole story.

He has always considered _her _– of all people – young and innocent and careless. She suddenly seemed older, more tired, and then she left to blow her nose and he observed her when she was walking, her long, pale, thin legs and her narrow wrists.

The last thing he remembered was breathing the bittersweet air of her dry hair, and listening to her breathe heavily as she fell asleep. When he woke up in the morning, the only thing left was this bottle of coke.

Luna was nowhere to be found, because the moon wakes up for the night only.

Her earrings were gone as well.

"Ronald Weasley! Where have you been the whole night?"

_Holy shit, woman. You would say that._

The glass crushed, thrown against the floor, and small sharp parts of the transparent object flew up in the air together with brownish droplets of the fizzy drink.

Ron picked them all up from the floor carefully. They hurt the flesh of his hands cutting deep in; he was so numb he didn't really feel it. The blood left its small dark marks on his jeans and the wood of the kitchen floor.

"Hermione, m'dear" he said, "allow me to explain later. And now, if you excuse me, I need to blow my nose."

He didn't wash his hands, letting the blood dry.


End file.
